Over five million in the U.S. now have Alzheimer's, which has no FDA-approved medication for treatment to date.

In November, 2016, the Eli Lilly anti-Alzheimer's drug solanezumab “did not meet the primary endpoint” in its phase 3 clinical trial. "The results of the solanezumab EXPEDITION3 trial were not what we had hoped for and we are disappointed for the millions of people waiting for a potential disease-modifying treatment for Alzheimer's disease," stated John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D., Lilly chairman, president and chief executive officer.


But news in the ongoing search for therapy was better in December, 2016, when researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis selected a new PET tracer from Janssen Research & Development to include with two others being investigated in the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Network Trial Unit (DIAN-TU) study. The tracer – THK-5351 – is designed to detect the brain protein tau.

Also in December, researchers at the University of Chile and University of Pittsburgh have developed a new, noninvasive technology that may diagnose Alzheimer's disease before symptoms appear. It detects the pathological oligomeric forms of tau protein in blood platelets in patients with Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. The ratio of the abnormal tau and normal tau protein can differentiate Alzheimer's patients from normal controls, according to the researchers.

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